4D nanoimaging of early age cement hydration.

Despite a century of research, our understanding of cement dissolution and precipitation processes at early ages is very limited. This is due to the lack of methods that can image these processes with enough spatial resolution, contrast and field of view. Here, we adapt near-field ptychographic nanotomography to in situ visualise the hydration of commercial Portland cement in a record-thick capillary. At 19 h, porous C-S-H gel shell, thickness of 500 nm, covers every alite grain enclosing a water gap. The spatial dissolution rate of small alite grains in the acceleration period, ∼100 nm/h, is approximately four times faster than that of large alite grains in the deceleration stage, ∼25 nm/h. Etch-pit development has also been mapped out. This work is complemented by laboratory and synchrotron microtomographies, allowing to measure the particle size distributions with time. 4D nanoimaging will allow mechanistically study dissolution-precipitation processes including the roles of accelerators and superplasticizers.

Accuracy in Cement Hydration Investigations: Combined X-ray Microtomography and Powder Diffraction Analyses.

Cement hydration is a very complex set of processes. The evolution of the crystalline phases during hydration can be accurately followed by X-ray powder diffraction data evaluated by the Rietveld method. However, accurate measurements of some microstructural features, including porosity and amorphous content developments, are more challenging. Here, we combine laboratory X-ray powder diffraction and computed microtomography (µCT) to better understand the results of the µCT analyses. Two pastes with different water-cement ratios, 0.45 and 0.65, filled within capillaries of two sizes, ϕ = 0.5 and 1.0 mm, were analysed at 50 days of hydration. It was shown that within the spatial resolution of the measured µCTs, ~2 µm, the water capillary porosity was segmented within the hydrated component fraction. The unhydrated part could be accurately quantified within 2 vol% error. This work is a first step to accurately determining selected hydration features like the hydration degree of amorphous phases of supplementary cementitious materials within cement blends.